Has the left won Americas
culture war? Some observers, including political organizer Paul Weyrich (who
coined the term "moral majority"), appear to think so. For many Americans who
cherish our nations traditions of individual freedom, limited government, and
personal moral responsibility, the Clinton impeachment melodrama abounded in evidence that
America has undergone a dramatic transformation.

If one were to credit the ubiquitous
opinion polls and the outpourings of the "mainstream" media, the American people
were nearly unanimous in their support for President Clinton, despite his ongoing personal
depravity and his willingness to abuse both the powers of his office and the institutions
of our judicial system in order to retain his position as the nations chief
executive. The only holdouts were to be found among the "religious right," which
 according to the custodians of "respectable" opinion  is a
marginalized group unworthy of political influence.

While the outcome of impeachment was largely a product of the gangland tactics
(including blackmail and character assassination) employed by the Clinton Administration
against its opponents, as well as the institutional cowardice of the Senate, there is no
doubt that Americas culture has undergone a dramatic transformation  a
transformation engineered by the radical left. Writing in the Winter 1996 issue of the
Marxist journal Dissent, Michael Walzer enumerated some of the cultural victories
won by the left since the 1960s:

 "The visible impact of feminism."

 "The effects of affirmative action."

 "The emergence of gay rights politics, and the attention paid to it
in the media."

 "The acceptance of cultural pluralism."

 "The transformation of family life," including "rising divorce
rates, changing sexual mores, new household arrangements  and, again, the portrayal
of all this in the media."

 "The progress of secularization; the fading of religion in general and
Christianity in particular from the public sphere  classrooms, textbooks, legal
codes, holidays, and so on."

 "The virtual abolition of capital punishment."

 "The legalization of abortion."

 "The first successes in the effort to regulate and limit the private
ownership of guns."

Significantly, Walzer admitted that these victories were imposed upon our society by
"liberal elites," rather than being driven "by the pressure of a mass
movement or a majoritarian party." These changes "reflect the leftism or
liberalism of lawyers, judges, federal bureaucrats, professors, school teachers, social
workers, journalists, television and screen writers  not the population at
large," noted Walzer. Rather than building "stable or lasting movements or
creat[ing] coherent constituencies," the left focused on "winning the Gramscian
war of position."

While most Americans would be mystified by Walzers reference to Italian Communist
theoretician Antonio Gramsci, those who wish to understand the ongoing culture war must
first have some understanding of the Gramscian concept of the "long march through the
institutions." The process described by Walzer, in which the cultural and
bureaucratic organs of our society have fallen under the influence of
"progressive" forces devoted to transforming our nation, is derived directly
from Gramscis blueprint for Marxist subversion. Gramscis distinctive insight,
as we will shortly see, was that the construction of the total state requires the seizure
of the "mediating institutions" that insulate the individual from the power of
the government  the family, organized religion, and so forth  and a systematic
redefinition of the culture in order to sustain the new political order.

That process is well underway in our nation  and if it is consummated, Americans
will learn that the culture war is a deadly serious effort to destroy the institutions and
traditions that have protected Americans from the horrors of the total state.

"The scientific concept of dictatorship," wrote Soviet dictator Vladimir
Lenin, "means nothing else but this: power without limit, resting directly upon
force, restrained by no laws, absolutely unrestricted by rules." Benito
Mussolinis totalitarian formula was even more concise: "Everything within the
state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." Whatever its specific
configuration or ideological pretext, the total state always requires that all human
activities be made subject to its power. But to exercise that power, the total state
relies, to a remarkable extent, on the cooperation of its victims.

No matter how vast the instrumentality of coercion or how vicious the intentions of the
ruling elite, the masters of the total state are always dramatically outnumbered by their
victims. No army of occupation is large enough to exercise total control over a tyrannized
population; no secret police is capable of exercising incessant and all-encompassing
surveillance. The triumph of the total state is made possible by the conquest of the human
mind. "We are not content with negative obedience, nor even with the most abject
submission," explained OBrien, an agent of Big Brothers "Ministry of
Love" in George Orwells 1984. "When finally you surrender to us, it
must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us.... We
convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him."

"Death by Government"

Of course, wholesale murder is very much a part of the totalitarian experience, as a
way to dispose of those who prove unsuitable for "conversion." Lenins
"scientific concept of dictatorship," when put into practice by criminals in
positions of political power, has led to unimaginable horror. In the Soviet Union,
Communist China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and elsewhere, the unchecked power of the state
"has been truly a cold-blooded mass murderer, a global plague of mans own
making," writes Professor R.J. Rummel in his study Death by Government.

During the first nine decades of the 20th century, writes Rummel, "almost 170
million men, women, and children" have been destroyed through the "myriad ways
governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead
could conceivably be nearly 360 million people." In a particularly sobering
observation, Rummel points out that while "library stacks have been written on the
possible nature and consequences of nuclear war and how it might be avoided, in the life
of some still living we have already experienced in the toll from democide (and related
destruction and misery among the survivors) the equivalent of a nuclear war, especially at
the high near-360 million end of the estimates."

America has been spared such horrors because it is uniquely blessed among all nations
with a tradition of ordered liberty and limited government. Our nations founding
documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, embrace a concept of
government diametrically opposed to the Leninist "scientific concept of
dictatorship": the rule of law, administered by a government that is itself subject
to the law, deriving "its just powers from the consent of the governed," and
created for the exclusive purpose of protecting the lives, rights, and property of the
law-abiding.

But these institutional safeguards of liberty and the rule of law are dependent on a
culture conducive to freedom. In a self-governing society, public morality and private
morality cannot be compartmentalized; people who have abandoned what George Washington
referred to as the "eternal rules of order and right" will be incapable of
exercising the self-discipline necessary to maintain a free government. In his Farewell
Address, Washington advised that there is "no truth more thoroughly established than
that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue
and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and
magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity." When
such habits of virtue are cultivated and preserved, society can enjoy the blessings of
limited government  one that will, in Jeffersons words, "restrain men
from injuring one another, [and which] shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their
own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the
bread it has earned."

Quiet Revolution

In principle, and to a limited extent in practice, Bill Clinton and his Administration
have embraced Lenins "scientific concept of dictatorship." Consider, for
example, the fact that Mr. Clinton has brazenly and repeatedly ignored Congress
constitutional authority to declare war  most notably in the undeclared Kosovo War,
which Mr. Clinton has conducted in defiance of a pointed refusal on the part of the House
of Representatives to declare war against Yugoslavia. In domestic affairs, Mr. Clinton has
made good on his stated intention to bypass Congress entirely, ruling instead by executive
decree. Former Clinton Administration lackey Paul Begala memorably summarized Mr.
Clintons ruling doctrine in these terms: "Stroke of the pen, law of the land
 kinda cool."

Just as disturbing is the fact that much of the Senate, and a significant portion of
the House of Representatives, have embraced a complementary concept taught by Adolf
Hitler: fuhrerprinzip, or the "leader principle." Under that doctrine, an
autocratic executive claims access to the "collective will of the people,"
exercises power that is "independent, all-inclusive, and unlimited," and
considers himself responsible "only to his conscience." Thus, the legislature
exists merely to rubber-stamp the decisions of the imperial leader.

Obviously, America was not conquered by the Soviet Union or by National Socialist
(Nazi) Germany. The institutions of our federal system of government still exist, albeit
in a somewhat distorted form. Elections still occur at regular intervals, and citizens can
still exercise their right to petition their elected representatives and express their
political opinions in the public square. Nonetheless, the chief tenets of the most
murderous dictatorships in history are now the operative principles of our national
government. How did this dire situation come about? How can it be reversed?

America has undergone what historian Garet Garrett described as a "revolution
within the form." Although the "forms of republican government survive,"
wrote Garrett, "the character of the state has changed." To illustrate how this
was accomplished, Garrett quoted this observation from Aristotles Politics:
"People do not easily change, but love their own ancient customs; and it is by small
degrees only that one thing takes the place of another; so that the ancient laws will
remain, while the power will be in the hands of those who have brought about a
revolution in the state." (Emphasis added.)

Communist theoretician Antonio Gramsci urged those who sought to bring about a
"revolution in the state" to pursue the course described (although not endorsed)
by Aristotle: The steady, incremental subversion of free societies by conducting a
"long march through the institutions" that define such societies. In some ways
the Gramscian approach is kindred to that pursued by Britains Fabian socialists, who
chose "patient gradualism," rather than violent insurrection, as the most
effective means to collectivize society. Gramscis distinctive insight was to urge
Marxists to escape from the shackles of economic theory and focus instead on
societys cultural organs  the press and other media, education, entertainment,
religion, and the family. In order for revolutionaries to establish "political
leadership or hegemony," advised Gramsci, they "must not count solely on the
power and material force of government"; they must change the culture upon which that
government was built.

Cultural commentator Richard Grenier recalls that during Gramscis incarceration
in one of Mussolinis prisons, he "formulated in his Prison Notebooks the
doctrine that those who want to change society must change mans consciousness, and
that in order to accomplish this they must first control the institutions by which that
consciousness is formed: schools, universities, churches, and, perhaps above all, art and
the communications industry. It is these institutions that shape and articulate
public opinion, the limits of which few politicians can violate with impunity.
Culture, Gramsci felt, is not simply the superstructure of an economic base  the
role assigned to it in orthodox Marxism  but is central to a society. His famous
battle cry is: capture the culture."

Gramsci recognized that the chief "fortresses and earthworks" impeding the
triumph of Marxism were precisely those institutions, customs, and habits identified by
Washington and the other Founding Fathers as indispensable to ordered liberty  such
as the family, private initiative, self-restraint, and principled individualism. But
Gramsci focused particularly on what Washington described as the "indispensable
supports" of free society  religion and morality. In order to bring about a
revolution, Gramsci wrote, "The conception of law will have to be freed from every
remnant of transcendence and absoluteness, practically from all moralist fanaticism."

Layers of Strength

At this juncture, a question naturally arises: If the conspiracy to undermine our
culture and constitutional system has enjoyed such success, why arent Americans
living in abject, undisguised tyranny? If Lenins "scientific concept of
dictatorship" and Hitlers fuhrerprinzip have been accepted as ruling
tenets by our apostate political elite, where are the gulags and gas chambers?

The answer to this question is quite simple: The institutions referred to by Gramsci as
"fortresses and earthworks" have not yet been completely overcome by the forces
of revolution. Yes, the American family is under siege, but its resilience has proven to
be formidable. Parents still seek to instill habits of self-discipline, honesty, and
genuine public service in their children. Millions of Americans from all religious
denominations and traditions remain committed to living honorable lives defined by
Gods law, and insist that their elected representatives, for the most part, pay at
least nominal homage to that standard as well. The American tradition of individualism
remains a vivid part of our national heritage. And despite decades of mass indoctrination
regarding the supposed glories of collectivism, most Americans still cherish their
individual rights  and are provoked to militancy when those rights are threatened.

These admirable traits  the "fortresses and earthworks" Gramsci sought
to overcome  were celebrated by Robert Welch  a devoted champion of freedom
 as "layers of strength" that should be fortified by conscientious
Americans. The reason the enemies of freedom must pursue Gramscis long-term
subversive strategy rather than more overt measures is because most Americans will not
meekly submit to the will of their would-be masters.

Yes, our situation is grave. No, America does not enjoy any privileged immunity to the
horrors that have descended upon many other countries during this century of rampant
democide. In order to preserve our existing freedoms, and to restore those that have been
stolen from us, it is necessary for Americans to understand the tactics, strategies, and
objectives of the Gramscian conspirators who are waging a culture war against us.